By Gabriella Marchant and Jordan Fennell, ABC News
Pacific nations like Tuvalu face an existential threat from rising sea levels. Photo: Tuvalu Meteorological Service / supplied
Joseph Sikulu's long-haul journey home to the Pacific has felt fruitless after the recent world climate talks.
It has become a "heartbreaking" exercise seeing the annual United Nations Conference of the Parties (COP) summit achieve so little of the action needed for Pacific Islands to survive climate change, the Tongan-Australian climate activist said.
But he still makes the multi-day trip to the negotiations each year, regardless of their slow progress on curbing carbon emissions.
Even worse than being let down at COP would be skipping it altogether, Sikulu said.
"If we're not part of this, we're invisible," he said.
For the Pacific Islands, where the threat of climate change is existential, COP has come to feel like an annual date with conflict and disappointment.
They have grown frustrated with the level of ambition among high-emitting nations in curbing carbon emissions - including Australia's - and they blame the influence of powerful fossil fuel interests.
Papua New Guinea's government even withdrew from the talks altogether last year, calling them "a total waste of time".
"The hardest thing about COP is having to celebrate incrementalism," said Sikulu, who is based in Sydney and works frequently in Fiji.
So when Australia announced its bid to host next year's COP31 "in partnership with the Pacific", the reception among Pacific Islanders was mixed - although Pacific governments have rallied behind the bid.
Australia and Türkiye remain locked in negotiations over hosting rights, and could even agree to share them, as the federal government intensifies efforts to resolve the diplomatic impasse.
The deadline for a resolution is at the COP30 meeting in the Brazilian city of Belem in November, and if one isn't found, the meeting will likely revert to UN offices in the German city of Bonn.
Joseph Sikulu has attended COP climate talks advocating for Pacific Island nations. Photo: Supplied / 350 Pacific
Sikulu said for all its faults, COP was still indispensable to Pacific Island nations.
And he said hosting it in the Pacific would help their cause.
"We know that we've only got five years left to do everything that we need in order to stave off the worst effects of climate [change]," he said.
"[COP is] the only mechanism available for the Pacific to advocate for everything we need to ensure our survival."
So how would the Pacific Islands benefit from a COP co-hosted with Australia, and what do they want from the talks?
Off the back foot
Australia would hold COP31 in Adelaide, and it's unclear whether the Pacific Islands would host any side events in their countries.
But a COP in Australia would help the region overcome arguably its greatest obstacle at the summit - sheer distance.
The toll of long-haul journeys to previous talks - usually thousands of kilometres - has previously put Pacific nations on the back foot once they arrive, former Pacific Island delegates said.
Coral Pasisi, climate change director at regional organisation Pacific Community, said it had taken three days for some delegations to reach previous COP talks, where they were also vastly outnumbered.
"They have by far the smallest teams there to negotiate," she said.
"I remember over 20 years ago, being in the room for three days, without sleep because we just didn't have enough negotiators."
Ms Pasisi said, given the stakes for the Pacific and its lack of resources to tussle with larger nations, the process could be "soul-destroying".
But she believes a COP in the Pacific could bolster the region's chances of negotiating better deals.
Among the priorities at talks are climate finance mechanisms to help Pacific nations adapt to the effects of climate change, including rising sea levels threatening to swallow low-lying atolls.
"We are facing now … the loss of countries completely," Pasisi said.
"The finance really underpins everything for us … Those ingredients bring us closer to finding some resolution for those on the frontline."
Sikulu has spent a decade finding ways for Pacific people to insert their voices into COP talks.
He said hosting the event would let Pacific Islands lay their situation bare to the world.
"COP can be a very technical place, and people are so far removed from the realities of our people," Sikulu said.
Seeing Pacific Islands firsthand had changed how previous foreign leaders understood the climate crisis, according to former Kiribati president Anote Tong.
Tong, an elder statesman of the climate movement, said it happened to Ban Ki-Moon when he invited the then-UN secretary-general to see the harm climate change was inflicting on his country.
"His very words were this: I've listened to you speak year after year at the [UN] General Assembly, but I must admit, I never, ever truly understood until now," Tong said.
Joseph Sikulu said hosting COP would benefit Pacific nations, despite the event's shortcomings in recent years. Photo: Supplied / 350 Pacific
Agenda-setters 'owed a COP'
Tong is one of many Pacific Islanders warning Australia against giving the Pacific only a token role in COP31.
He is also sceptical about whether Australia and its fossil fuel interests will align with the ambitions of Pacific Island nations at the talks.
"The question is, will Australia come in, with and for the Pacific, or will it come in with its own political agenda?" Tong said.
He has seen the fossil fuel lobby's influence on large carbon-emitting nations during previous climate negotiations.
"[Those countries] come to these discussions from an economic perspective, whereas we come to these discussions from an issue of survival," he said.
Sikulu fears that fossil fuel companies at COP31 could once again weaken ambitions to decarbonise.
"We know the influence the fossil fuel industry has within Australia and the impact that it's had on the COP negotiations throughout time," he said.
Heading into last year's COP29 conference in Baku, Azerbaijan, the event's CEO was recorded apparently offering to facilitate talks about fossil fuel deals.
Australia's recent decision to greenlight Woodside's North West Shelf gas project until 2070 has also drawn ire in the Pacific.
While the federal government insists the decision is consistent with Australia's Paris Agreement obligations, Sikulu said this fact summed up the lack of ambition in COP-negotiated agreements.
The Australian government did not respond directly to questions from the ABC.
Climate Change Minister Chris Bowen told journalists last week the government wanted to host a COP focused "on investing in Australia's renewable energy superpower" and "lifting the agenda of the Pacific" where the "existence of several countries is at stake".
Sikulu hopes the Australian government will use the chance to co-host COP31 to scale up its climate commitments, like the United Kingdom did after hosting COP talks in 2021.
Analysis after the Glasgow conference showed investment in the UK more than doubled the cost of hosting COP, and much of that cash went to climate initiatives.
But Sikulu sees the opportunity to host COP as a question of fairness as well as money.
For years, it has been the travel-worn Pacific Island delegates who have pushed the world's ambitions higher in climate negotiations.
"If anybody is owed a COP in this world, it's the Pacific," he said.
- ABC News
